New Delhi: People in large numbers started queuing outside ATMs and banks since early Tuesday morning to withdraw valid currency notes from the vending machines and to exchange the recently demonetised bills.
While banks remained closed on Monday on account of Guru Nanak Jayanti, in many parts of the country, cash-starved customers were disappointed on Tuesday too as most of the ATMs ran out of cash quickly. Some of the ATMs which had cash were facing server issues, making people wait in the queue in frustration.
Many households are running out of the valuable piggybank money saved by their children for meeting essential daily provisions. Banks’ infrastructure is unable to handle the huge rush resulting in long serpentine queue where the average waiting time is four hours, especially for the currency exchange.
Officials said ATMs will take two more weeks before they start dispensing the new high-value Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes. With public anger rising across the country, the government eased key restrictions, including raising daily withdrawal limit from bank counters and ATMs as well as hiking the amount of old and now defunct currency notes that can be exchanged.
